7 Best Electric Toothbrush Consumer Reports 2019 – Top Rated

The vast majority of electric toothbrushes aren’t ‘smart’, in that they don’t come with a dedicated app. You can, however, easily download an app and use it alongside a non-smart toothbrush. This certainly makes sense for kids, who need a bit more fun than most smart brush apps allow.

In addition to the following buying advice and our reviews, you might want to check our guide to the best electric toothbrush deals – all of which reflect the actual prices that brushes are sold at, rather than the (often inflated) RRPs that retailers are fond of quoting.

Features To Consider

Timer

Good electric toothbrushes feature a brushing timer that helps the user brush for the recommended full two minutes. Most dentists suggest you spend 30 seconds per quarter of the mouth (upper left, upper right, lower left, and lower right). A good brush timer will alert you every 30 seconds so you know when to move on to the next quarter.

Cleaning Modes

The more-sophisticated electric toothbrushes feature different modes for specific mouth areas. Most will have a standard clean setting and a deep-clean mode. Some will have a special setting for brushing the tongue (see below) or sensitive teeth, while others have a range of speed or intensity settings that can be used in a similar way.

Pressure sensor

They should also boast a pressure sensor to prevent you from pushing too hard against your teeth, which can actually damage both the tooth and the gum.

When I first used an electric toothbrush with a pressure sensor I was amazed how wrong (and damaging) my brushing technique was. I was brushing far too hard. Vigorous over-brushing can wear down the enamel on the teeth, and lead to sensitive teeth and receding gums, exposing the sensitive root area.

Tongue cleaning

Many of us neglect to clean our tongue as part of our dental regime, and this is a mistake. As much as half the bacteria in your mouth reside on your tongue. Look for white areas or desquamation (skin peeling) for signs of tongue ill health. Having a healthy tongue could improve your sense of taste and reduce bad breath.

The Oral-B Genius 9000 has a special tongue-cleaning mode, which is gentler than that which you use for brushing your teeth. This will eliminate the need for a separate tongue scraper.

Brush head replacement

Most of us probably don’t change our toothbrush heads often enough. Both the Oral-B and Philips smart brushes claim they know when you need to switch to a new brush head, although we suspect this is calculated merely by time since the previous replacement. If you can’t work this out – or have a scheduling system – then a gentle reminder from the connected app should help you keep your brush heads from wearing out.

Battery life

Almost all the handles reviewed here are recharged via the usual two-pin charger. We’d love to see more toothbrushes charge via USB like regular devices (and there are a couple in this list) – but currently most manufacturers, despite their apps, still think about bathroom charging points only.

In terms of battery life, the clear winner is the Philips Sonicare FlexCare Platinum, which can keep going for up to three weeks between charges (on a twice-a-day two-minute regime). Others typically range between one and two weeks of battery life.

Smart apps

The smart brushes we test here connect with a smartphone app to help you perfect your tooth-brushing routine, collect data on each brushing session, and point out errors in your technique.

In practice we found these apps to promise more than they actually achieved but using the apps for a few weeks really did focus the mind to improving our dental hygiene regime. We expect such apps to get smarter and more accurate but for now, you should use them to perfect your routine rather than be a surrogate dental hygienist.

In the meantime, here’s how we tested our current favorites:

We meticulously outlined and compared each toothbrush’s features and accessories.

We evaluated each toothbrush handle’s weight, grip, brush heads and charging station for ease of use and durability.

We downloaded and tested the apps included with four of the higher-end toothbrushes on our list.

Once we finished our testing, we compiled and analyzed the data we gathered to provide you with our best recommendations. We’ve selected our Best Overall, Best Value and Best Premium picks, and we’ve provided in-depth reviews of all 10 toothbrushes we tested to help you choose an electric toothbrush that makes your smile bright.

Finding a Smile-Worthy Toothbrush

With name-brand manual toothbrushes priced below $10, it can be hard to justify spending 20 times more for a top-of-the-line electric toothbrush. However, dentists and hygienists increasingly recommend electric toothbrushes over manual options. Dr. Doll who has been practicing dentistry since 2009, noted several reasons why.

“A lot of the newer electric toothbrushes can sense pressure and therefore can clean well without overcleaning things and damaging the gums,” he said. “Also, their rotary movements or sonic movements enable, in my opinion, better plaque removal.”

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